Who Will Dig The Graves?

Last Sunday night I had Steve Sheldon speak at our Sunday Evening Service. Steve and Linda Sheldon are missionaries with Wycliffe and FBC has supported them for many years. Many things that he was reporting on and many of the stories that he shared fascinated me. One particular story caught my attention. He told us how he and Linda were in the mission field 9 years before they had a person converted to Christianity. After this man came to know Christ as his Savior, Steve was interested in trying to find out what made him finally come to know the Lord. As Steve talked to him he found out it wasn’t the translation of the Bible in his language, it wasn’t the Bible verses that he told him, it wasn’t those “spiritual things” per say that made this man accept this Savior that Steve was telling him about. His reason for wanting Steve’s Jesus to be his Jesus too was because Steve dug the graves. See at the time there was an illness going around and many of the villagers were dying. These village people only believed in evil spirits. According to the villagers there were evil spirits of the air and also evil spirits of the ground. Steve said that there would be times when their house would be full of village people because the spirits were after them. So by Steve digging the graves he did something that met a significant need in their life because it saved them from having to be tormented by these evil spirits that they believed lived underground. So here is the question I have been thinking over since hearing Steve, “Who will dig the graves?” What I mean is, what is the equivalent to digging the graves here in Sibley? See for Steve digging the graves for these people were the way he showed them the love of Jesus. The man that was saved thinking was like this, If you dug the graves for us because Jesus loves you and you want to show us this love then this love of Jesus that you talk about must be so real. So how will we show our community the love of Jesus? People don’t see love through a denomination, through the color of carpet, through a constitution; people don’t even see love through words unless it is followed up with action. See we have a great opportunity to be that church that meets people where they are at in their life. We have a great opportunity to be that church where people say, they really know how to love people. I don’t mean loving people that are in the church, because most churches in Sibley has that down, most churches in Sibley know how to love the insiders. What I mean is, loving the outsiders, loving those people that look different, loving those that act different, loving those people who are in need and are hurting. We have an opportunity to be the church that is known in the community as “the church” that is there for the community. And all it will take for us to become all of this is to dig some graves. So the question that we all need to think about is this, are we ready? Are we ready to dig graves? If we are it’s going to require us to think outside the box at times. If we are it will mean that at times you will become uncomfortable. If we are it will mean that you will get dirty? If we will be it will mean that you might have to put others first before yourself. But if we will people will get saved and Sibley will be changed. So I don’t know about you but I think we should “dig some graves.”